10k Race Report

Last big(ger) race of the year is in the books!

Saturday was the Hollidaysburg 10k/half marathon race. I picked the 10k because I knew all of my training would have to share time with the start of school (and semester for me) and soccer season. My training went well and I was excited to get to the race Saturday morning.

After fretting about the weather all week, I woke up Saturday morning to almost perfect race conditions - cool (mid 50s), overcast but dry. It was pretty windy, but not a worry.

My A goal for this race was 56:00-56:59 minutes. I was pretty sure I could pull that off. Arriving at the race, I got to catch up with a lot of familiar faces in the local running community- that totally calmed my nerves (and boy, let me tell you they were riding high that morning - it's like I never raced before).

Somehow, through all my chattiness, I ended up pretty close to the front of the line-up (1st mistake). 8:00am hit an we were off! The course is fairly hilly the entire route but starts with a slight grade - to which many runners passed me (duh!). My mapmyrun app was on, so I was getting pacing updates. Mile 1 hit and Chica (that's what I named the voice that updates my paces through the app) told me I was running an 8:14 pace. Wow! I would've never guessed. That's way too fast for me (I could keep that pace for a 5k, but not so much in this race). I knew I needed to slow down or I'd crash and burn. So I slowed a little. The rest of the course was pretty uneventful - I managed to keep a decent pace, mixing in some walk breaks (thanks to bolting out at the start I seemed to lose steam, not to mention the hills).

The elevation lay out  - I'd call that a little more than 'rolling' hills

Hey Amy (there in the center of the screen with the grey shirt)! 

Maybe you'd be more effective if

#1 you turn around to face the right direction and

 #2 stop chatting! 

Fact check: I'm not in there :)

Before I knew it, I was cresting the last hill (with a few choice words for it) and making my way toward the finish line - always my favorite part of the race because I always see my guys there waiting for me! I could see the time clock and knew that I could hit my time goal - so of course, I picked up the pace a little. I crossed in (officially) 55:33! Score, check! Under my A goal! I ended up scoring a 3rd place finish in my age category and earning some bling by way of a medal :) Yay!

Here I come ( a big shout out to my sister who bought me the awesome tee shirt I was wearing - you can buy it here - the front has a list: Run Happy, Run Grumpy, Run Speedy, Run Slow, Run a little, Run a lot. The back says: Just Run)

There I go

Note the guy in the yellow shirt in the 2 pics above. We followed each other for about the last 2 miles - I'd be in front, then him. When we hit that last hill, I looked over to him and said, "Dude, this hill is our bitch - let's do this thing!" (sorry for the swearing - remember that I was 6 miles in and starting the steepest climb of the race).

Happy!

Me with 2 running friends from work who also earned medals in their age categories!

Final Official Results:

Time: 55:33

3/9 female 35-39

The rest of 2012 brings 3 more 5k races - October 27th is up next!
Thanks for reading!

Race Week

It's the last day of September! What?!?

My last post was mid-August. Since then, well, life has been busy. We started soccer season and school. The days are getting shorter, as is the year.

 

For the past 8 weeks, I've been training for a 10k in Hollidaysburg. And now it's race week.

The race is Saturday. I ran this race 2 years ago and totally shocked myself with my time (54:25), taking 1st place in my age category. That is not my goal this time, rather, just run!

 

I've been following Hal Higdon's intermediate 10k plan and well, I'll be honest, it's been tough. I'm used to running 3-maybe 4 times per week. This plan is M-Th runs, Fridays off, Sat long run, and Sun cross training. Wow!

I've done OK following the plan.

My goals for this race:

A: 56:00 - 56:59

B: 57:00 - 57:59

C: 58:00 - 59:59

I really don't want to take more than 60 minutes to complete this race.

 

Some photos to prove that the past 2 months have been busy and that I'm not just dodging blogging!

 

1st day of school!

Soccer!

 

 

 Open house @ school

 

Ag Progress Days at Penn State (also known in our house as tractor fest)

 

College soccer games

 

 Sleepovers

Jackson turned 10! P-a-r-t-y!

 

Whew! It's a wonder I have time to run!

 

It's taper week :)

Exactly What I Needed

I've kinda been MIA on here if ya haven't noticed.

I've been in a running slump (spoiler alert: I'm gonna whine and complain for a sentence or two - I won't be offended if you decide to click off the post now or just skip to the next paragraph). The 15k that I ran in July not only kicked my butt physically, but mentally. I've just felt defeated in my running - every run has been hard, distances have been short, pace has been slow, I missed quite a few days of running due to a house full of sicknesses(including my own respiratory virus).

I needed to get OUT of that slump.

So I showed up at a 5k race today, registered on site (it seems many of the runners had the same idea I did this morning and I barely made it through the registration process and to the start line in time - there's a lesson in here!), and ran my heart out - this was my chance to prove to myself that I'm ready to get back into the swing of things!

Gun went off, we were off, and I was moving pretty good. Nothing big to report - it all went pretty smoothly. Had to stop and tie my shoe(my new shoes - Brooks Ghost 5 - I'll comment on in another post) but other than that, I cruised in to the football stadium, rounded the last lap, and crossed the finish line in 26:40, earning me a 3rd place finish in my age group! And as the title of this post says, that's exactly what I needed!

No photos to show....just imagine me with a smile ;)

P.W.

A PW? What's a PW you ask?

Well if you can have a PB, or personal best, then you can have a PW, or a personal worst.

I can check a PW off my list of things to do because I scored a PW on Wednesday - the 4th of July 15k (9.3miles) race in Altoona.

Here I am before the race.

I actually felt pretty good about my training and I wasn't too nervous for the race/distance. Maybe I should have saved some of my crazy energy for the race...

And then we were off. the 9.3 miles took us from downtown Altoona across town to the Eldorado section of town and back. It was a hilly and challenging course and the heat/humidity played a significant factor in my energy levels.

Jeremy and I planned it out so that once I took off, he and the boys would drive to meet me at various points along the course. I'm so glad we did that because seeing them out on the course gave me motivation to keep going. They switched out my water bottles for me, offered me chap stick, ran along side of me, and cheered me on.

Sounds like a good race,yes?

So why the PW?

Official time: 1:36:22

Pace: 10:22

Female 35-39: 12/17

About 4 miles into the race, I felt like my energy was zapped and I started taking walk breaks. I did that pretty much the remainder of the race.

It was very hot and humid and I guess I just wasn't prepared to run in those conditions.

I was pretty well hydrated and I used up my fuel (pretzels and shot blox) along the way, so I know it wasn't water or carbs.

I walked through every water station and even if I didn't drink the water, I dumped it on myself to help cool down. Maybe the extra 5 pounds of wet clothes slowed me down?

I don't really feel like over analyzing what I did wrong or what I could've done better. I just know this is a race that I just want to put behind me.

It's hard to see me (in the purple) - this is just a little over the 1mile mark. Going strong at this point. my first mile was 9:06

About 4 miles in - this is when I started my walk breaks.

This is the home stretch. My mapmyrun app was reading 9.3 miles at this point (my app logged 9.64 miles for the race).

Coming into the finish line - trying to pick it up a bit!
I guess the up side of coming in after most of the runners is that everyone else is there cheering you on!

Me and Sandy. She did great - finished in about 1:28:xx

With our smiles, you wouldn't know we just ran a 15k (maybe it was the popsicle that was bringing the smile). 



It's been 3 days since the race.

I ran 3.2 miles this morning just to give the legs a test - everything's OK:)

Up next? Vacation, where I'll only be running for fun.Then I have to figure out what's on the horizon!



More Motivation

I am signing up for a 15k (9.3 miles) race on the 4th of July!

I started my training plan and I don't have any specific goals set yet, but I do know that my biggest challenge in this training period is not the number of runs, cross-training sessions, strength-training sessions, etc. I have before me, rather, the extra pounds (lbs, #s) I've been carrying around with me.

I know that I've come so far in my weight loss journey, but there's just this extra ~10 pounds that has been hanging around for many months. I go up and down 3-4 pounds constantly, but have been at a plateau for too long. It's gotta come off.

I know for me, exercise alone is not the key. I need to control what goes in my mouth or I will continue on this 3-4 # roller coaster.

So from this point forward, I will post my weekly weight loss (I might follow a cute idea I found on another blog called "WIW," or weigh in Wednesday). I can't bring myself to post my actual weight, but pounds lost (or gained) I can handle.

I'm gonna need some motivation, so here's some to start:



Some Days.....

It's been a long time since I lacked the motivation to exercise; weeks, months, years maybe.

Well, yesterday I woke up with no real plans for anything, let alone exercise. See, I got my long run in on Thursday evening with the Fox Trot running group, so I didn't have specific needs to SLR (slow long run) yesterday. I thought I'd want to maybe add another SLR in yesterday, or maybe I'd want to combine a short run with some cross-training. Instead, I found myself not wanting to. do. anything.

I slugged around the house for several hours and finally I knew what I needed to do = RUN!

But I also knew that I needed some motivation to get going, so I went to my Pinterest board "All things Running," and found the exact thing(s) I needed:

I laced up my shoes, grabbed my gear, and headed out. I told Jeremy that I was hoping for 3 miles, probably slowly and possibly even stopping to walk - I just had to get out there!

3.27 miles - 30:03 minutes - DONE!

I walked in the house and when Jeremy asked how I felt, I told him, "Exactly how I was hoping I'd feel - great!"

Lesson: Exercise - you might dread it, but you'll never regret it!

So true, so true.

Super Fans

Wow! We really packed a lot of activity into this weekend. It really became more of a racing weekend.

Yesterday, I took the boys out to the Altoona Curve stadium to cheer on 5k runners. We were 'super fans.' Wondering why I wasn't a runner? I was saving up my energy for a 5k this morning (race report further down).

I really enjoyed cheering on the runners. When you're a runner you never get to see the start of the race or the sprint to the end for the first place finisher.

Onto today's race.

This was my 'anniversary race.' Two years ago, I ran this race as my first 5k (and well, the rest is history).

I really wanted to write a post about my goals for this race but I wasn't 100% sure I was going to run it - I started having some hip pain on Friday during a very short run; enough pain that I stopped to walk and called the chiropractor immediately for an adjustment. Yesterday I planned to 'take it easy,' but between being a 'super fan,' grocery shopping, and the million other little things I did, my legs didn't really get the break I was planning for.

I jogged to the race start line from my parents house (about 1 mile) - I figured this would determine if I was going to run or just be a super fan again. The hip hurt, no lying. But the pain didn't increase as I ran, so I figured I'd give the race a try. I was lucky enough to have my own Super Fans (any guesses) for this run.

It was sunny, beautiful, and much warmer than any run I've done this year.

The whistle blew and we were off!

I ran my heart out - I was sweating, panting, cramping, all those good/bad things that come along with running hard.

I crossed the finish line in 26:25 - I was thrilled. I really wanted to come across that line in under 27:00 - I did way better than that! The best part of the race was when my Super Fans rang the little bell they brought with them (it was a bell you put on a kid's bike - we were joking about it earlier, thinking that I should take that with me and that when I wanted to pass someone, I could ring it) - I heard that bell and started laughing a little.

The best part of being happy with my race time was that I also earned a 1st place finish in the Female 36-40 age category (it was a small race)! Score!

Good run!

Joking around pre-race (humor is how I keep the nervousness to a minimum)

At the turn-around point (thanks to my Super fans for the photo)

Almost there!

Super Fans!